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| after Dirck Pietersz Crabeth Creation of Eve and The Fall of Man ca. 1560-70 painted glass Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| after Dirck Pietersz Crabeth Allegory of Christ as Savior of the World ca. 1560-70 painted glass Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
Lives of the Saints
After the offending bit is popped out
these tiny stitches in your neck
are exquisite. Lips of the slit
don't speak the way you think they should,
break into stupid song, blow kisses
at the doctor. Some piece
that kept insisting on itself
will spend a few weeks in a jar on holiday
with strangers, stained and diced
and separated neatly
from its secrets. You can only
wait, reading your book about the sex
lives of the saints, the lance
that pierced and then pulled slowly out
of Saint Teresa's heart. A slice
is venerated in Milan, they say, an arm
in Lisbon, a single breast in Rome;
but her heart's entrhoned
behind the convent walls at Avila. Pink
under glass, it wears a tiny crown.
– Rachel Loden (1999)
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| attributed to Lambert Sustris Nessus abducting Dejanira, pursued by Hercules ca. 1540-60 oil on panel Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Pieter Aertsen Adoration of the Magi ca. 1560 oil on panel Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Anonymous Painter working in England An Allegory of Man ca. 1596 oil on panel Tate Britain |
Allegory
that it was an allegory of his life is incontestable
though its meaning may remain forever obscure
through lack of a key
say it is an allegory of his life
a man stuffed with arrows and a checkered floor
say that the arrows are opinions and that the floor
is an attitude rejecting all accidents
say it is an allegory in which the river is the hour
that saw the birth of his eye
say that the rock was the stubbornness of his hands
confronted by obstacles that the city was
an angle of sunlight made at a certain hour
that it was an allegory in which each of the
children were the odors of particular months
heralding a change in the weather
say that it is an allegory and the sunlight was the memory
of a glass of water
say that all of the figures were syllables of a language spoken
by fur-coated strangers or the rules of a game he had once
seen played that the sword was a letter he had written
to the Doge or an opinion on astronomy
that the three distances were stages of contemplation
or the stages of an insect's life
of which the foreground was the larval stage the middle distance
a cocoon and the background the escaping imago
say that the mountain was a hostile color
and the man in the cell a failure to perceive
say it is an allegory of his life
in which the frame was his body dissected
with the bones laid bare and the veins
and corpuscles projected on the canvas
say that the clouds were his eyes travelling
toward unseen birds
say that the subject of the painting was time
in the shape of the moon that was as
yet unseen behind the rim of the horizon
toward which it had been travelling all day forward
– David Antin (1966)
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| attributed to Jacob Matham after Hendrik Goltzius Fortitude 1598 hand-colored engraving Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| attributed to Federico Zuccaro Standing Angel and Two Cherubs ca. 1566 drawing Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Annibale Carracci Orpheus holding a Lyre before 1584 drawing National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa |
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| Albrecht Dürer Apollo and Diana ca. 1501-1506 engraving Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
A Roman Sonnet
The whistling arrow flies less eagerly,
and bites the bull's-eye less ferociously;
The Roman chariot grinds less hurriedly
the arena's passive sand to crown the post –
how privately, how silently, our lives
rush to their end! Who doubts this? Animal
despoiled of reason, each repeated fall
of the sun is as final as time's end.
Does plowed Carthage confess what you ignore?
Death's breaking through your guard at every turn,
when you chase shades and hug deception. Friend,
the hours will hardly pardon you their loss,
those brilliant hours that wear away the days,
those days that eat away eternity.
– Robert Lowell (1963)
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| Giulio Romano Three Studies of Reclining Models before 1546 drawing Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| attributed to Maarten van Heemskerck after Giulio Romano Five Putti supporting Papal Tiara ca. 1532-36 drawing Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| attributed to Maarten van Heemskerck after Michelangelo Figure of Matthan from the Sistine Ceiling 1536 drawing Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Marcantonio after Raphael Prudentia ca. 1510-27 engraving Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Marcantonio Satyress before a Terminus ca. 1509-10 drawing National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa |
Poems from the archives of Poetry (Chicago)